


these strange roads we travel by

by a_haunting_of_four



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Truckers, Americana, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Time Loop, True Love, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_haunting_of_four/pseuds/a_haunting_of_four
Summary: Every year, Thor drives down deserted roads to spend the night in a forgotten motel--with a front desk clerk with haunting green eyes and a grin that never changes.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79





	these strange roads we travel by

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to A and R for the amazing beta work and your kind yelling <3

Thor cruises down worn out roads that darken with every mile that rushes past his cabin window.

Across the stretch of arid ground, far in the horizon, the highway gives way to dusk, and dusk to the glow of the city as night falls. Enough to disrupt the clear night sky above the Nevada desert. He drives further East, until even that glow is barely an impression; until dusty roads give way to open fields and turning grass. When he hits the tree line the darkness deepens. 

Stray branches scratch the roof of his cabin and slash at his side mirrors. Vehicles this tall are a rarity on these back roads, and road maintenance even rarer. Thor needs to drive slow and steady over the roughest stretches to keep the road under his wheels. 

His shoulders ache--his right knee has been starting to protest the long hours he spends on the road for a little over a year. He has been advised that he should start looking into treatment options for the spinal compression that is beginning to affect his lower back. It feels, at times, like he has aged a decade in half the time. It would never have occurred to him at twenty that his body would feel like this at forty-seven. 

But the pay has been good to him. He has a neat sum sitting quietly in a savings account for anything he might need. More importantly it keeps him on the road, which has kept him going forward for a very long time.

One of the first lessons he learnt when he started was the importance of keeping his workspace utilitarian, so he keeps his cabin tidy and sparse. A thick woollen throw where he can reach it; bottled water and non perishables in the glove compartment and between the seats, and few things beyond that. Clean clothes, toiletries, and a few paperbacks to trade if he is ever in town long enough to read through them. A box of cassette tapes under the passenger seat that slides back and forth over the carpeted floor with every turn and break. Bumping against the front one moment and out of sight the next. 

The night is so dark that the cold light of the waxing moon seems sharply bright in comparison. When he arrives at a familiar intersection it is second nature to pop out the tape in the player and turn on the radio instead. There is a derelict house a ways ahead with a caved in roof--once he passes it he’ll be able to catch the local radio station for another few miles. 

A dark shade rushes past the window and like clockwork, static gives way to voices.

He tunes in just in time to hear the tail end of a weather forecast and the last beats of a late night news segment that segues into an interview with a local artist. 

Their voices are broken up with, words cutting off every few sentences and giving way to white noise, but it is a simple enough story to make out. An artist who started young, and learnt his craft at his grandfather’s side. An old garage with a crooked pottery wheel and coarse palms to shape a new generation of art, and a family’s history into a clever soundbite.

“. _..es into ceramics is a way of infusing their memory into everyday life..”_

Thor’s mother had kept a large printed plate in the kitchen--rich red Oaxacan clay stacked high with limes in the summer from the tree in their backyard and other fresh fruit when they could afford it. Spare change and his mother’s keys when they couldn’t. Thor had liked to rest his chin on his arms and peek into the bowl so he could look at the patterns drawn inside, flowers and spirals in colourful enamel. 

He had chipped away at an edge where the glaze had begun to lift with the side of his nail for months until a flake of enamel had come clean off. A chip of colour, bright blue, that he had kept for himself in an Altoids tin. Baby teeth and an antique coin that had belonged to his father, two old post stamps and a chipped piece of sky. They rattled in his pocket when he rode his bike down the street then up again. There had never been much to do in an old town with a single main road besides riding in circles leaving trail tracks on the dirt beneath his bike wheels. 

Thor can tell that he has crossed another boundary when the radio shorts for longer breaks, laughter slurring into a hiss. He switches the radio off, and the rest of his journey is silent. 

The digital clock wired over his steering wheel reads a quarter to midnight when the treeline breaks again into half-open field.

The motel’s parking lot is half empty. A blue minivan with tinted windows is parked furthest away, to the left of the outbuilding that serves as a lobby and office space. A vintage Cadillac with a rusted bumper and guard sits across from it. The rooms make up a single file down from the office to the treeline to Thor’s left; the last two cars are parked perpendicular to the wooden porch that connects them, sidled so close together that one of the rearview mirrors has been knocked off. The doors would not be able to open more than a few inches. Thor leaves his truck as close to the trees as he can without blocking the entrance. He won’t box anyone in that way. 

Outside, the night is stagnant. Not quite the syrupy heat of a summer night, but without a breeze to shift the leaves in the trees the air feels thick. The night feels darker. There are holocene lightbulbs between every other room, casting a warm glow a few feet into the parking lot. The brightest lights by far come from the office. The motel sign is the only thing that looks good as new--mismatched colours flashing in an off beat. A star is given the illusion of movement with every blink of the lights, and right underneath it in vivid red: Vacancies. 

All of the occupied rooms have the curtains drawn. As he walks across the parking lot he can hear a television playing; cranked high enough that he can make out the distinct, albeit muffled, sounds of an audience laughing and get a faint impression of the host’s charismatic intonation even from a distance. The door to the room that sits smack in the middle of the block has been left ajar.

Thor keeps his eyes facing forward.

A cheerful bell announces his presence when he pushes his way into the office. He is greeted by the same linoleum floors that seem to find their way into every motel this side of the coast, The same uncomfortable plastic chairs lined under a window for guests to wait in. A broken fan with a few strands of colourful foil tied to the grid half-obscures a spot of damp on the wall. Despite the stale air, the room is ice cold.

Loki is already behind the front desk waiting for him. 

He is dressed as he usually is, a long sleeved t-shirt with a wide neck that has been stretched even further by its owner’s tugging and overwashing. His hair is messy and a little greasy nearer to the root while the ends curl under his ears and the nape of his neck like a sweet afterthought. The green nailpolish he is wearing is half gone, chipped away by nervous fingers from nails bitten into irregular shapes. There is a fabric bracelet from a music festival still wrapped around his left wrist. A long leather thong disappears under the dark fabric of his shirt. 

He looks up from the magazine he is lazily hunched over, the nail of his thumb still caught between his teeth as he greets Thor with a little smirk. 

“Evening handsome,” from the way his body shifts and how the chair creaks Thor can guess that he has just uncurled his leg from under himself so he can sit straighter. He has told Thor each and every time that his boss doesn’t like him putting his dirty sneakers up on the desk chair but it never seems to stick. Nothing ever seems to stick with Loki. “Looking for a room?” He makes give’s Thor’s body a long pass. “A double for you and your shoulders?”

“Single,” Thor replies without rising to the bait. 

“Are you?” Loki’s mouth stretches into a full grin, pearly white teeth bright under the neon overheads. He spins his chair to fetch him a key before Thor can answer. 

Thor does not let himself rest his weight against the front desk like he wants to, and he does not try to peek behind the counter. Stays one step away and keeps his hands in his pockets at all times. 

There is a small bowl of mints by a welcome sign painted in a cheerful vintage font, and a small stack of brochures off to the left. Thor tries to keep his eyes trained on them instead of the nip of Loki’s waist as he stretches. Knows he won’t be able to for long. 

“Let’s see what we have here.” Loki’s jeans are low-riding and _tight_. Thor isn’t sure how he manages to fit his Walkman into the back pocket of his jeans.

The wooden cabinet where the hotel keeps their keys is on the cleaner side. If it locked at one time, it was long ago. One of the doors is barely hanging on by a hinge that can’t have been oiled anywhere near the past decade. Loki makes a show of appraising the contents with a hum.

“Tough luck! No singles,” he declares, dropping himself back into his chair after he makes a selection seemingly at random. “But I could offer you our honeymoon suite.” He pushes himself playfully back to the desk and gives Thor a little wink. ”Half price, for your trouble.”

Loki never bothers closing the cabinet after grabbing Thor’s keys--he can see the full rows behind him.

Thor simply nods and reaches for the keys when they are offered.

“That will do.”

Loki drags his pointer finger across the side of Thor’s hand, teasing and purposeful. The placid front-of-house mask he wears never slips. The mischief is always in his eyes.

\----

The honeymoon suite is the first room left of the office. The door is shiny, ostensibly newly painted, and bright against the chipped white paint that still clings to the walls. Three rooms down the door is still ajar. It shuts with a bang, shaking the porch, and Thor can’t help the flinch that makes him miss the lock.

The carpet in the suite is a matted old thing in a deep wine shade. Thor keeps his shoes on as he steps inside, and the first thing he does after turning on the dim overhead is draw the fabric curtains closed. 

There are two raspy towels folded and stacked by the foot of the king-sized bed--dull off-white fabric on red satin. A bar of rose-scented soap is tucked between them, a dancing woman stamped onto the wrapper. The faux gold lettering will transfer onto his thumb if he presses down hard enough. 

Thor lets himself sit on the bed for a moment, shoulders sagging and soap in hand. It is colder inside of the room than it was in the office and his entire body aches with another drastic change in temperature. 

It is tempting to let himself rest. Lay down still dressed and with his boots strapped on and let sleep take him. Motels have a way to them that makes him feel like he is breathing in treacle--like something in the back of his mind recognises them as harbourage. And this one, more than any other, is dangerously adept at making him let his guard down. 

He doesn’t realise that he is nodding off until a loud crack wakes him, almost like the backfire of his truck when it goes too long without an oil change. It comes from the metal grid under the window, and shortly after the wood creaks as it expands. 

The heater. Loki must have turned it on from the office for him. 

There are three lamps in the room--one on each bedside table and a standing lamp by the desk. He turns on two of them and doesn’t try the third. Knows the lightbulb is missing without having to check. 

The room seems smaller lit like this; with less pale shades cast against the walls. The remaining shadows seem to gather under the desk and behind the curtains where they hide a handspan too short to brush the ground. If someone were to stand behind them Thor would be able to see their feet--up to the bony knobs of their ankles.

He looks away.

Thor leaves his coat and the small duffle he carried out of the truck on the bed, and takes a bundle of clean clothes and the folded towels into the bathroom with him. Fresh underwear, and a new shirt. A pair of clean, thick socks to wear.The stiff denim trousers he has on still have a few more wears left in them before they’ll need to be thrown in the wash. 

There is a small radiator secured to the wall, by the sink, and the space is pleasantly warm even with the ventilation grid stuck halfway open in the top left corner where a modest sink and toilet are tucked away in the dark. The sink’s ledge bends into a counter large enough for Thor to place his clothes on and besides it is a towel rack within reach of the shower. A bathtub is built into the wall, too shallow for two people to share comfortably, and obscured by a garish shower curtain with a plasticised reverse. Across from it is a mirror, hung by two pegs rather than built into the wall and large enough that it frames the bath like a canvas. 

He takes care to hang the extra towel as best he can to cover the mirror and leaves the shower curtain pulled to the side. 

The water pressure is shoddy at best, but the water is warm enough to soothe his sore muscles and wash the sticky, days-old sweat from his body. The soap’s scent is familiar, cloyingly sweet and antiquated. Thor peeled off the wrapper with care and left it folded under his room key where it would be safe from the water. An old habit. 

It doesn’t take him long to wash the road off his back. He dries himself briskly and squeezes as much water as he can from his hair while standing in the tub still, and drops the towel on the floor to soak the run-off puddled by the ledge. 

On the bed, someone has laid out his jacket deliberately, a sleeve tucked under the pillow and the other laid across negative space like a parody of an embrace. There is a slight indent on the pillow where a head would be resting. 

He pays it no mind as he packs his dirty clothes; does not ask permission or apologise as he picks up his coat and shrugs it on to keep his hands free. All he leaves behind is the the sweet-smelling wrapper, placed gently on the pillow.

The light stays on behind him as he leaves the room and locks the door. 

One of the cars is gone, but otherwise the parking lot is much the same. Still and dark. Down the end of the hall the television has been cranked up higher; green blue light from the screen flashes through the gap in time with the audience’s laughter and the host’s cues where the window stile disturbs the curtains from within and bumps against the netting stapled to the sill. 

The office’s window is a neon white grid interspaced by overlapping blind segments. As he walks past it Thor gets the distinct impression that something is matching his steps from the inside, even if nothing disturbs the pattern, no shadow follows where he could catch it out of the corner of his eyes. Walking faster makes the trek seem longer, so he keeps steady and goes to look for Loki out back. 

He finds him sitting on one of the picnic tables overlooking the empty plot that flanks the motel, feet up on the seat, elbows resting on his knees, and attempting to blow smoke rings that dissolve into a plume of smoke before they can take shape. 

Loki looks over his shoulder when he hears him approaching.

“Checking out so soon?” His eyes dart to the small duffle hanging from his shoulder.

“Just getting some air.” Thor smiles.

“In that case--” Loki slides to the side and pats the space next to him, inviting Thor to sit. Thor throws his bag by the foot of the picnic table and joins him, sitting on the bench with his back against the table ledge. Loki ‘boos’ at him in mock censure.

He offers Thor his cigarette right after and Thor takes it, keeps it between his fingers and doesn’t take the drag he sorely wants from it. Only brings it to his mouth and presses the filter against his lips like a kiss.

There is no sign of the moon in the sky. 

“There was going to be a pool here,” Loki starts, and wiggles his fingers playfully until Thor passes the cigarette back. Their hands brush again, this time by Thor’s device. “Right there.” Loki points the area out, outlining an imaginary perimeter with the lit cherry before bringing the cigarette back between his lips, muffling his next words slightly. “I wish they had. It’s hell here over the summer.”

“What happened?”

Loki shrugs, leg knocking against Thor’s shoulder.

“Dunno. Something about the ground.” He blows out the smoke with a whistle. “Wasn’t meant to be broken.”

Every year they have this conversation, and still Thor can never read the emotion in Loki’s eyes as he says that. 

“I have a pool at home.”

Loki hums, overacting his interest. “Do you?”

“A hot tub. Over ground, on my back porch.” Loki is looking amusedly down at him and Thor tries to match the playful slant of his smile. 

“Well I’ll be damned if you’re not getting nicer by the minute.” Loki sucks on the corner of his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Maybe I should take a little road trip. Got any space in that truck of yours?”

“For you?” Thor’s heart clenches with regret. “Always.”

Loki smiles sadly back. 

There are so many questions that cannot be asked.

Thor has never been sure of how much free will Loki possesses; whether he remembers each of their meetings as clearly as he does and counts the hours between each of them, spanning months. Spanning years. They do this again, every time. Misstep and step back in line by turns in a cycle that neither of them can break. It has become easier, with time, to go along with this scripted version of the truth. Thor hasn’t felt afraid of anything but loss for a very long time. 

Now each turn of the wheel feels like coming home. 

He had missed their meeting only once. One night in twenty years, and lived to regret it.

A year later, Thor had been sick with guilt and half-frantic as he drove down the neglected back roads to make it to the motel before midnight. Terrified that he had committed some irreversible transgression and cost them both everything. But when he pushed open the door Loki had been waiting for him with the same half smile and a cheeky glint in his eye. Like nothing happened. The only perceptible difference on him had been the bright smear or red lipstick on his lips; striking and inexplicable.

(For a moment, as Loki placed the suite keys on his palm, he’d caught his hand in his like an apology. Who owed it more to the other just then, Thor was not sure.)

“Hey,” Thor reaches over to tug on the bracelet on Loki’s wrist. “You like music?”

That perks Loki right up, and Thor is more than happy to listen to him rattling off about the name tied around his wrist; how he had seen them live before they got big in the sticky backroom of an awful bar in a dead end town. Thor will forget all of their names by morning--the band’s, the town’s. Loki’s friend who had snuck into the bar with him and the bartender who had slipped them drinks poured into re-used soda cans with colourful straws. But for now they are here, and listening to Loki speak is like falling into a trance. 

Sometimes Thor will ask about other things. His hair, his clothes. The lighter with a snake engraved on one side and a six-digit number on the other, or the small tattoo behind his ear that Thor is only able to see on the nights when he reaches across the space between them to brush his hair away from his face. All clues of who Loki was (is, could be) if he was ever more than a shade. 

Thor will keep the vague impressions of Loki’s stories; like pencil drawings on a napkin slipped under a glass. Coming to the motel each year is like meeting him again and stepping back into a brother’s arms to remember why he loved him all at once. He has wondered at times whether there was ever a life in which this night or one of its many variations never happened. It seems unlikely. 

“Here,” Loki breaks the spell when he pulls his wrist away from Thor’s grip. He twists easily to reach into his back pocket, pulling out his Walkman and popping out the tape to offer it to Thor. 

It has never been the same cassette twice. 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’ll want it back eventually.” Loki reassures him with a familiar lilt. “Keep it in one piece for me.”

“Come with me and you can keep an eye on it yourself.” Thor offers.

“I don’t think the boss would like that. Who would keep an eye on this place then?”

Thor has learnt better by now than to bring up the shadow that lurks behind Loki. Half-hidden by the door frame where the staff room would be in the office.

Three steps away even now. Faceless. Unmoving. 

“The coyotes,” he suggests to make Loki laugh.

“They’d do a much better job than I do, I’ll give you that.” Loki takes a drag out of the cigarette that never seems to burn out. “Tell me about yourself, Shoulders. How did you end up here?”

He brings new stories each year for Loki and the chasm under their feet. 

Tonight Thor tells him about the train tracks behind the house where he grew up, and of the time he pulled himself up onto one of the open carts when he was thirteen. His mother had been furious, waiting for him at the next station with her hands on her hips and his father’s old boots on her feet. She had started keeping them by the front door after he passed--they must have been the first thing she could step into before rushing out of the door to chase after him. 

He kept their home; for her memory at first, and then for practicality’s sake. Living requires that he have a valid address and a postal code, but it has been a very long time since has spent more than a month there, resting between jobs. He ceded the backyard over to the young family next door years ago; tore down the fence between their properties so they could extend their modest vegetable patch and watch their children play and grow on a wide patch of green grass in a town that was flooded with cement as it grew. 

(He does not tell Loki about blowing his tires last winter when he was on a job up North. How he spent the better part of two days shivering and counting the seconds down to his rescue or the end. It was the first major incident of Thor’s career, and he has been three times as cautious ever since. Out of all the operators that have gone through his employer, Thor has the lowest incident rate and the best track record. He is never late, and always thorough.

After all, he has a date to keep.)

When Thor turns to find Loki’s cigarette gone, he knows that they are running out of time. Years of ash have burnt a stain on the ground but there are no crumpled filters or debris. Only an impression.

“Give it here,” Loki asks, meaning Thor’s hand. His breath smells like mint and his thigh is a pleasant warmth pressed onto his arm. He reaches down to slap the back of his hand gently against Thor’s shoulder. 

“What for?” 

“Just let me see your hand for a moment.”

Thor lets Loki rearrange them until they’re facing each other and lets him keep his hand afterwards. They’re still one step apart, mismatched by the table’s height, but Loki makes up the distance by shifting even closer; spreading one of his thighs to accommodate Thor’s width and bowing his head low enough that the tips of his hair brush the exposed skin of his wrist. 

For a split second, looking down onto their joined hands, Thor sees an interposed image. The hands of the young men they were on the first night they met. It is gone with his next breath and the brush of Loki’s pointer finger over his life line. 

“So? What do you see?” Thor asks fondly.

“A long life.” He draws an invisible line across his palm. “Good health. And--hm. Curious.” Loki raises both of his eyebrows and peeks up at Thor from under his hair. 

“What?” Thor plays along.

“There is a nick here.” Loki points to the crease of Thor’s ring finger, where there had once been an oven rack burn. So long ago now that it is scarcely more than slight discolouration visible only under the right light. 

“And what does it mean?”

“You’ll find something on the road. An unexpected turn.”

“Good or bad?” 

“Well, that depends.”

“On?”

“You.”

When Thor looks up from their joined hands he is already tipping his head to take the kiss Loki presses on his lips. 

“I think we’ve got a problem, Shoulders,” Loki whispers against his lips. Thor catches the shape of something ineffable in the depths of Loki’s green eyes. 

“What?” He reaches down gently to frame Loki’s cheek with his hand. 

“I really want to get on that truck with you.”

Thor has tried every combination of words that he has been able to think of to ask Loki to come with him. Has spoken them aloud, burnt them, carved them onto the earth, in the hope that it would set him free. 

“You must really like that cassette.” Thor has had practice enough to keep his voice steady.

Loki laughs a breathy yes against his lips and reaches up to steal another kiss,

It is the sweetest goodbye.

\--

Loki gives him a cheeky wave goodbye from the office door before he steps inside. His skin glows neon bright, and Thor wishes he could take a picture of him. Steal an image to carry with him somewhere other than his head like proof. 

Instead, he waves back and watches him go, and turns to walk down the motel porch alone. 

The lights are still on in the honeymoon suite, outlining the shape of the shade standing by the window. As Thor steps closer, so does the shade--closer and closer until their face is pressed against the curtain, pushing against the glass in a rictus of pain. Mouth open wide and panting. With every wheezing breath it takes the glass steams, and the fabric sticks grotesquely into its mouth with every inhale. 

Loki’s tape in hand, Thor steps past the window and tries the door for the room next door instead. The handle gives under the slightest pressure, unlocked, and he breathes a sigh of relief. 

Right as he steps into the room, a car pulls up into the parking lot leaving a perfect muddy imprint where its wheels dig into the dry ground. The last thing Thor sees before pulling the curtains close are a man and a woman stepping out, hair drenched and running towards the office like they’re trying to escape a storm Thor cannot see. 

He does not take off his shoes, or his coat--lays in the middle of the bed closest to the door and keeps his bag tucked by his hip. Loki’s tape he places gently on the night-stand, too afraid that he might break it if he rolls over during the night. 

It is easy to fall asleep, and his dreams when they come are the soft impressions of a life only half-lived. Thor dreams of a dark haired boy riding a small red bicycle next to his and racing down a single dusty road. Of reaching down to pull a skinny body up into the train wagon right as the wheels begin to squeal. He dreams of laughter, and soft touches. The weight of a body displacing the mattress as it sits next to where he is lying prone. Kisses placed on his eyelids as sunlight streams in through the windows. Conversations that never happened and have been replayed in his mind a thousand times. A life lived without confines. 

When he wakes the morning is cold and grey beyond his window. 

The room smells musty. When Thor’s feet touch the ground they fit perfectly on a single set of footprints left on the dusty floor. Right where he stood the night before.

When Thor drives away there is no one to watch him go. Only broken windows and an empty, rundown motel. 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! and if you have any theories about what happened to Loki or what the lipstick meant I'd love to hear them ;)
> 
> twitter: @honeyspice12  
> tumblr: a-haunting-of-four


End file.
